Silent Letters
Further information: Silent letterSome letters do not provide any information about contemporary English pronunciation. For example, in Old and Middle English was an allophone of /f/ occurring between vowels. The deletion of historical final schwas (weak vowels) at the end of words such as give and have phonemicized /v/, but the now-silent ⟨e⟩ remained at the end of most /v/-final words. Words spelled with final ⟨v⟩ such as rev and Slav remain comparatively rare.
Read more about this topic: English Orthography
Famous quotes containing the words silent and/or letters:
“could not even sustain
Some casual shout that broke the silent air,
Or the unimaginable touch of Time.”
—William Wordsworth (1770–1850)
“The post-office had a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.”
—Jane Austen (1775–1817)